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From: gt4512c@prism.gatech.EDU (BRADBERRY,JOHN L)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Finding Available Length Of Strings...
Message-ID: <16985@hydra.gatech.EDU>
Date: 13 Nov 90 16:47:05 GMT
References: <16752@hydra.gatech.EDU> <16758@hydra.gatech.EDU> <1990Nov09.183957.15122@dirtydog.ima.isc.com> <1990Nov13.140527.14797@ssd.kodak.com>
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology
Lines: 44


In article < 34449 weimer@ssd.kodak.com> (Gary Weimer) writes:

>>>In article <16758@hydra.gatech.EDU> gt4512c@prism.gatech.EDU
>>>(BRADBERRY,JOHN L) writes:
.
.
.
>>>Here are the options that spring to mind:
>>>(a) Pass a length parameter.
>>>(b) Pass a pointer to the end of the string.
>>>(c) Implement a string structure that does one of the above for
>>>you, e.g.
>>>    typedef struct { char *start; char *current; char *end; }
>>>string_t;
>>>(d) Use only implementations that support the "Read Operator's
>>>Mind" syscall.
>>
>>(e) Use the "standard" C workaround for this problem.

>
>As other people have pointed out, this question looks like it was
>posed by a C crossover from another language, so why don't we
>tell them what C can do, instead of what it can't.
>

Actually, in the graphics and signal processing area, I frequently
have to port (rewrite) thousands of lines of code from other
languages to C. In the process, I find it quite interesting to
attempt where practical (possible) to duplicate some features so
that the code algorithms appear as similar as possible. C makes
this possible more often than not. 

The original post was in no way a criticism of C (I think the
language is tremendous!), but a question of how something might be
done! To date I've gotten close to 100 very creative 'workarounds'
which is the next best thing to an exact solution. For that I am
very thankful because I'm sure few of us would like to
'intentionally' recreate the wheel...
-- 
John L. Bradberry        |Georgia Tech Research Inst|uucp:..!prism!gt4512c
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